The Monster of Florence (2)

BANG!

He had forgotten what had crossed his mind that compelled him to pull the trigger that very first time.

BANG!

What he remembered was the burst of satisfaction that followed.

It was the late 1960s to the mid-1980s when he started stalking the moonlit countryside, preying upon unsuspecting lovers seeking moments of intimacy within the solitude of their parked cars.

He was amazed by how simple it was. And getting away with it? Even easier. But what really shocked him was how skilled he had become at it.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

That euphoric sensation as he saw them sprawled on their car seats... their eyes lifeless after what seemed like their own moments of euphoria.

He stole it.

He stole their moment. He could feel waves of their sexual release coursing through his veins.

"Now, it's mine."

He whispered as he pulled his new victim's body out of the car, dragging her into the clearing nearby. He pulled his tool and started stabbing. Why?

Why not?

They were here to engage in their reckless deeds under the open sky. Nothing but indecent whores, they were. There was no one else who deserved it as much as they did. Absolutely no one else.

And if those men could do anything they wanted to her, so was he. It was his now. It had become his moment of euphoria in this secret secluded place they used to satisfy their sexual tendencies.

The space had become his. The woman had become his. The pleasure had become his.

He opened his pants, getting ready to mutilate her pubic. Maybe her breast too. Now, he didn't have to be worried about getting caught. This space had become truly his anyway. No one could stop him. No one could interrupt him.

Yes, he should cut her open when he's inside her—

Rustle!

He turned around to see a shadow of a man standing behind him. He had yet to register his presence when a forceful blow from a golf club struck his head with a brutal, echoing thud.

Sorin stood there with the golf club he found inside the car's trunk, staring blandly at his fading body after he struck the shit out of it. The man furrowed his brows seeing the dark figure disappear after a little while.

"So it's some kind of illusion?" Sorin mumbled, his gaze fixated on the golf club's tip, where a stain of blood marked the point of impact. "But I definitely struck something solid."

He put down the club and observed the lifeless body of a woman on the grass. To be honest, it was a mess. Despite her face looking exactly like Elara's, everything else was unidentifiable because of the stabbing wounds.

He tried to observe his surrounding. Some grass and trees, even the dirt and rocks, seemed suspicious.

After he took a long breath when he realized Elara was missing from the car, he remembered what they had taught him before going here.

"Know yourself better. Know your strength and weaknesses, and use the status window's guidance to unlock your full potential. Don't forget that your status window can also tell you if there are any abnormalities."

There was no abnormality, but thankfully, when he opened his status window and checked his party screen, their names were still there. Brother and Elara's names were still glowing green like his own name above them.

From that, he tried to assume that they were alright. They might just be separated in one way or another from him, and the telepathic chat option couldn't reach them.

After that, he remembered things they discussed about his potential. He saw the last reign he obtained after facing Mammon, [Synapse Overdrive (F)].

Before coming here, he also had tried to activate it. He found it incredibly fascinating.

"Activate reign, Synapse Overdrive."

With a deep breath, he invoked the reign's power, and an immediate surge of energy pulsed through his veins. His senses sharpened, and the world around him seemed to come alive in vivid detail.

The strands of fog that had obscured his vision began to unravel, revealing the intricate web of moisture-laden air. Every droplet glistened with an otherworldly luminescence, guiding his sight like a celestial path.

Sorin's ears caught the gentle rustling of grass blades, the distant symphony of night creatures, and the rhythmic beat of his own heart.

As he traced the field, his newfound sensory acuity allowed him to feel the texture of the damp ground beneath his feet with uncanny precision, even though he was wearing shoes. Yes, it felt really weird, yet clear.

The soft caress of the night breeze became a tangible embrace against his skin. Even the scent of earth and vegetation carried on the wind seemed richer, more layered.

Although the reign's current rank limited its capabilities, Sorin's experiences with Synapse Overdrive always left an indelible impression.

Now he could see what was weird in this place. It was foggy, not because of the weather or the wind. It was foggy for the sake of being foggy.

It was a space created from memory... no. It was a space created based on someone's perspective. It was familiar, but not to him. It was familiar to the 'monster'.

The scenery, the sound, the smell, and the atmosphere, everything... was inside someone else's domain of mind. Sorin had entered this particular person's consciousness, peering into his own world.

He turned his attention toward the figure of Elara on the ground. He observed her body more closely with his heightened sense and found a lot of discrepancies between the corpse and the real Elara.

He had activated Synapse Overdrive a couple of times today. After his first time testing it in Covolo with Brother and Elara, he did it again later after they arrived here.

He wasn't proud of it, but he activated his reign when he was kissing Elara inside the car earlier.

Okay.

He admitted he was kinda proud of it before and even now.

From that moment, he could point out the difference between her body and this corpse. The lengths of their thighs were different. Also, Elara's waist was a bit more slender, and her collarbones should be more pronounced.

He sighed in a bit of relief after he was finally able to make sure that even though this corpse had her face, it wasn't Elara.

And so was the corpse of Brother he found before that he checked for one more time before looking for her. They had the same face, but it wasn't them.

"KYAAAAAAA!!!"

Sorin flinched, swiftly getting to his feet with the golf club clutched tightly. He strained to locate the source of the scream—it was a woman's voice.

He was going to run toward it when he felt something grasping his ankle. Swiveling around, he was met with the ghastly sight of the woman's corpse hand clutching his leg; her face contorted into an unidentifiable mess.

"My... son...! He... killed... my... son...!"